Bernie in the Lion's Den

In case you missed Bernie Sanders' Rosh Hashanah speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, here's the C-Span video in its entirety:


You can watch this as an antidote to the poison that will be spewed at you from tonight's CNN Debate between Donald Trump and the nine little anti-Trumps.

Who says Donald Trump has no experience?

His run for President didn't begin with his announcement taking place at Trump Tower as I type this. Here he is trying to draw the cameras' attention to his famous baroque hairstyle with a "run for President" on the Reform Party ticket in 2000:

Just in case you forgot (I did), the ultimate Reform Party candidate in 2000 was Pat Buchanan (how could I forget the votes he got in Palm Beach County because of a bad ballot design that threw the state of Florida and the presidency to George W. Bush?).

Bill Kristol Is Not a Reliable Theater Critic Either

I had the pleasure of seeing a new production of Molière's Tartuffe at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C. last Saturday night. While standing in the lobby with my wine during intermission, I was surprised to see a badly-dressed man wearing William Kristol's familiar permanent frown walk past. A couple of days later, something made me search for "Bill Kristol Tartuffe" on Google and I was led to his tweet about the show.

Just fled at intermission from ghastly production of Tartuffe @ShakespeareinDC. Perhaps worst single production of any play I've ever seen.

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) June 7, 2015

The Saturday performance was a preview that received a standing ovation from those of us who stayed until the end, but it hadn't been reviewed yet. When the play officially opened on Tuesday, it received unanimous rave reviews in all the places I could find: The Washington Post, DC Theatre Scene, Broadway World, and DC Metro Theater Arts, but, then again, all of these reviewers seem to have watched the end of the play rather than storming out like an offended French noble watching the first version in 1664 (before the royally-mandated happy ending in the 1669 version).

Of course, Bill Kristol has been known to make extremely hasty and seriously erroneous judgments before. Here he is on C-Span in 2003 mansplaining to Daniel Ellsberg how George Bush's decade-long war in Iraq would be nothing at all like Vietnam.

"This is going to be a two-month war, not a year war..."  --Bill Kristol, 28 March 2003

Anger Translation is Even Funnier with French Subtitles!

Le traducteur de colère d'Obama a fait un tabac by LeHuffPost

While more entertaining with subtitles, LeHuffPost did cut out some of Luther's best lines --  and President Obama's hilarious performance from Saturday night deserves to be seen in its entirety -- so here's the C-Span video:

Luther (Keegan-Michael Key) doesn't appear behind the President's podium until the 14 minute mark, but don't skip ahead. The speech is filled with gems like this one that you'll find at 1 minute and 40 seconds into this 20-minute speech:

"... I am determined to make the most of every moment I have left. After the mid-term elections, my advisors asked me, 'Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?' And I said, 'Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.' Take executive action on immigration? Bucket! New climate regulations? Bucket! It's the right thing to do. ..."

After that, you won't be able to stop listening.

#MittsMissingReturns (Part Thirteen) -- Romney may not know how to treat a dog, but he knows how to blow a dog whistle

Just watch the rise he gets out of this crowd earlier today when he says, "No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."



Sorry Mitt, we don't care about your birth certificate, but we'd love to see the missing tax returns from 1998 -- 2009 (and the missing pieces from 2010 and 2011) that would give us some more realistic ideas about that fantastic business experience that you keep touting as your main competency and reason to be President (other than the fact that you're a white guy from Michigan who will never be asked for his "long-form birth certificate" by a billionaire publicity hound with a bad hairpiece).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Keep up with the lengthening list of installments in the #MittsMissingReturns saga by clicking on any of these links:

• #MittsMissingReturns [part one], July 3 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Two), July 6 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Three),  July 10
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Four) -- In a Nutshell, July 14 
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Five) -- In Which Mitt Romney Gives a Typically Squirrelly Response, July 16
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Six) -- Herman Cain Weighs In, July 25
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Seven) -- Romney Finds One Issue on Which He's 100% Consistent, July 26
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eight) -- Another Lesson in Mitt's Lying Laugh, July 31
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Nine) -- Mitt Romney vs. Harry Reid, August 4
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Ten) -- In which Paul Ryan makes Mitt Romney throw up in his mouth a little, August 13
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Eleven) -- Fox & CNN are ready to move on already, August 15
• #MittsMissingReturns (Part Twelve) -- In which the privileged candidate tells the small-minded press which questions they are allowed to ask, August 16 

And keep up your small-minded tweeting with #MittsMissingReturns on Twitter. 

Remember January 20, 2009

There's an obvious tendency in this blog to spend all my time in horror and amazement that the 2012 election might be bought by those with great wealth whose main purpose is preserving their wealth at the expense of the rest of the nation. But enough about Republicans.
Sometimes we need to cleanse our souls.
Sometimes we need to remember the real reason we need to be committed in this 2012 election.
Sometimes it helps to take the time to remember how proud we all felt on January 20, 2009.

'That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet. 

'These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. 

'Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. 

'They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.' 

--Barack Obama, From the First Inaugural Address